Take (Temptation Series)

By: Ella Frank

Dedication

To Logan,

Because around you, all I want to do is fall without thought.

- Tate

PART ONE

Ignorance:

Inexperience with unfamiliar situations and/or emotions.

1.

When Logan woke in a bedroom other than his own, it was usually for one of two reasons. Either he’d had too much to drink and gone home with someone he shouldn’t have or he’d purposely gone home with someone, fucked their brains out, and been too tired to creep out at dawn. But neither of those two reasons applied this morning as he sat in the small loveseat by the window.

No. The reason he was still there was simple—or perhaps not that simple at all. Tate Morrison.

The sun was just beginning to rise and slip through the curtains, streaming over the honey-toned skin of Tate’s back. Logan had the intense urge to climb into the bed, kiss his way up Tate’s spine, and then nuzzle in under those brown curls he loved.

Wait…love?

But he didn’t move. Instead, dressed only in his work pants, he stayed where he was, paralyzed by his own thoughts, and watched Tate where he lay between the white sheets, sleeping peacefully.

Last night had changed the dynamic between the two of them, and Logan knew there were decisions—big decisions—that needed to be made.

Rubbing his fingers along his jaw, he found himself smiling. Tate Morrison, where the hell did you come from?

As the thought entered his mind, Tate’s legs shifted under the sheet, and his head turned on the pillow so his face was now angled toward Logan. His eyes were still closed, but Logan knew it wouldn’t be long before he woke, so he took a moment to really study him. Tate had somehow managed to change the way he thought about relationships. So it was time to push aside insecurities and move forward if he really wanted to make Tate his.

As Tate’s warm, brown eyes opened and locked with his own, Logan found himself standing and smoothing his palms down his legs. He walked toward the side of the bed and crouched down so he could be closer to the sleepy man staring up at him. Reaching out, he brushed aside an errant curl and leaned down, touching his mouth to the spot by Tate’s ear.

“Call your mother. Tell her there’ll be an extra person on Sunday.”

Tate rolled to his back and stretched his arms up over his head before he sat up so they were face to face with only inches separating them. “Are you sure?”

Logan shook his head and placed his hands on the bed. He pressed his lips to Tate’s and then laughed. “Fuck no. But I’ll be there…for you.”

“Don’t be alarmed,” Tate started, fingering the unfastened button of Logan’s pants, “but you almost sound like a real boyfriend.”

Logan pushed forward, reconnecting their lips as Tate lowered back to the mattress. “Imagine that.”

He felt Tate’s hand smooth around to his ass as he nodded. “Yeah. Except the Logan I know sure as hell wouldn’t be in my bed with his pants on.”

Moving back until he was kneeling, Logan slowly unzipped his pants as he held Tate’s avid stare, and when he backed up off the bed to drop them to the floor, Tate kicked the sheet off his naked body. The low groan that left Logan’s throat couldn’t be helped as he shifted back down between Tate’s thighs and knew right then—with this man, he wanted it all.

All he’d once dreamed of was right there within reach. All he had to do was reach out and take it.

* * *

Later that morning, Logan stepped off the elevator and made his way across the marble-floored lobby of Mitchell & Madison.

“Good morning, Mr. Mitchell,” their perky receptionist greeted him.

“Good morning, Tiffany.”

With a briefcase in one hand, he found himself whistling as he pushed through the large glass double doors. He was in a fantastic mood.

“Oh good. There you are.”

Cole.

Not even a foot in the door and already his brother and business partner had an expression on his face that did not bode well for him.

“Good morning to you too, Cole,” Logan replied as he walked between several desks and stopped in front of Sherry.

“Good morning, Mr. Mitchell.”

“It is a good morning, isn’t it, Sherry? Could you possibly give him the memo?” He pointed to his brother. “I think he missed it.” He grinned at his middle-aged paralegal as he took the envelopes she was holding.